Parquet Courts sign to Rough Trade, announce EP, tour

Parquet Courts, the Brooklyn-based garage rock act whose most recent release, Content Nausea, dropped its own rhythm section (to form the band’s alter-ego, Parkay Quarts), has signed to London’s Rough Trade Records. Rough Trade, who get the entire band in the deal from New York’s What’s Your Rupture, will release their Monastic Living EP worldwide on November 13 to back Parquet Courts’ upcoming European-American tour.

With their signing, Parquet Courts join acts like Warpaint and Dean Blunt on the label, which is itself part of the British Beggars Group, responsible for distributing not only Rough Trade but also 4AD, Matador, and XL.

The real question: have they freed themselves from the “vulgar and empty broadcasting ritual” that they noted in Content Nausea’s eponymous single? In dialogue with this move and with the other bands on Rough Trade, it seems as though Parquet Courts are hedging their bets that a critical engagement with commercial artistry (like frontman Andrew Savage’s ongoing painting exhibition) looks like monastic living that—maybe—can stave off content nausea born of too much consumption.